★★★★☆
Four Stars
In 2004, Robert Macfarlane travelled to the Chideock Valley in South Dorset with Roger Deakin, a fellow writer and mentor, to find a “holloway” as described in Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male. A holloway is a deep, sunken track, lined with trees, dug into the ground by the monotonous continuity of human passage, now generally overgrown and forgotten. But centuries ago, these paths were crucial to communication and transport, and formed the very backbone of our national network of roads.
Robert Macfarlane is the torch bearer of a new generation of nature writers who are rediscovering, and indeed retreating into our countryside. His elegant prose and his deep insight, touching on the importance of time, place and personality, and in particular musing on the philosophical nuances of paths, is a breath of fresh air, and perhaps even hope.
There is something a little sinister about this latest book by Macfarlane, in which the author’s relationship with Roger Deakin, author of Waterlog, features prominently. Much in the same way as in his previous works – most notably The Wild Places, where an entire chapter is also dedicated to their travels along Holloways, Roger Deakin appears as a wise, experienced traveler offering both insight and support. One gets the feeling that Macfarlane has not yet got over Deakin’s untimely death in 2006, and in a sense this book is both a heart wrenching reminder of his absence, as well as a eulogy to his life.
However, Holloway also shows Macfarlane at his most poetic, and indeed philosophical. His writing still encompasses the best of history, geography and deep philosophical insight. Perhaps a highlight is his realisation that, after feeling Roger’s presence when he walks along the same path in 2011 with fellow writer Dan Richards and artist Stanley Donwood:
“I now understand it certainly to be the case, although I have long imagined it to be true, that stretches of a path might carry memories of a person just as a person might of a path”
It is comments like these, charged with meaning, yet also in many ways haunting, which capture the general tone of the book; Macfarlane manages to capture both the sinister and the beautiful in a unique synthesis of both elements. This is reflected by Stanley Donwood’s sketches, which are such an integral part to the book, perfectly illustrating the sinuous whirlpool of tress and bark of the holloway. They are cold, dark and black, whilst also having an air of warmth and comfort. Perhaps that is the point of nature itself, both inviting yet at the same time harsh.
The book also features new poems by Dan Richards, which, synthesised with Macfarlane’s almost poetic prose, gives the book an extra dynamism, a third person’s perspective which creates an interesting balance. Both authors have very different styles, and yet also seem to coincide on a number of aspects, most notably the mist through which they ride as they follow the holloway, hiding them from each other yet eventually leading them to a point of convergence.
Holloway is a pleasant half-hour read which comes across as something of an experiment; whilst the combination of art, poetry and prose is an interesting concept, there seems to be little new on offer, except perhaps evidence of Macfarlane’s philosophical maturity. Hopefully his next book, on the underworld of sewers and pipes in urban landscapes, will employ a similar style from an entirely different, and indeed refreshening perspective.
Holloway is published by Faber and Faber, and is available for £12.99 on their website
Also listen to James Bulley’s ‘Holloway Soundscape’:
